“Gillian,” Cain began, stepping forward, “you must stop this nonsense—”
She lunged at him so quickly the guards holding her nearly lost control. “Horadrim. It means nothing, not anymore. Evil sorcerer! I trusted you, but you are a vessel for him just like the rest. You know what’s coming for us, don’t you? Fire and blood and the dead clawing their way from the ground, the way they did in Tristram. The earth will split, and hell will spew forth! You know it to be true! You have seen it, as I have!”
More mutters mixed with uneasy laughter rose from the crowd, cries about Gillian’s madness growing as the villagers condemned her state of mind. Clearly, she had lost control, people said. It was time to put her away for good. Gillian’s head whipped from side to side, and the rest of those near her shrank back, as if the power of her gaze would contaminate them.
“I hear them whispering; they tell me things, terrible things, about Adria and her daughter. She is cursed!”
Cain took another step, close enough to touch her. When he reached out to her shoulder, she froze, trembling. Her skin felt hot enough to scald him.
Abruptly her eyes filled with tears as she sagged between the arms of the guards, and the Gillian he had known so long ago seemed to surface for a moment. “I’m . . . sorry,” she whispered. “I am lost and confused. They . . . they told me the child must die. I had to do it. I could not stop them anymore. Help me, Deckard, please. Make them stop.”
“Hush now,” he said quietly, squeezing Gillian’s shoulder and releasing it. Then he turned back to the nobleman. “What would you have me do?”
“There’s a madhouse in the north end of the city,” the nobleman said. “It may be appropriate, in this case. We cannot have her among the public. Many people are worried enough about their own lives, and her screaming about the end of the world only makes things worse.”
The nobleman had folded his arms across his chest and seemed ready to march them both off to the gallows as an alternative. The crowd murmured, many heads nodding in agreement. Cain looked around again at the faces surrounding them, all of them openly hostile and suspicious. A great sadness filled him, a sense of the loss of one of the few people who remained from his life many years before. Gillian needed more care than he alone could give. Her encounters with demons had corrupted her mind and soul, perhaps forever; she may well still be possessed by them. She had seen things that nobody else here in the crowd could have possibly understood, had faced down her own demons and lived to tell about it. People had been ripped limb from limb in front of her, babies eaten by the ravenous undead, heads impaled upon stakes by gibbering imps who had bathed in the townspeople’s blood. Yet the strength within her, the nobility of her inner battle, would remain lost on the people around her now. Only Cain knew the truth: she was more of a hero than any of them could ever dream of becoming. The great tragedy that followed her like a black, looming cloud would finally be her undoing.
Cain wiped a tear from his eye. There was nothing more he could do for her. He still sensed the anger and fear in the crowd, and the danger of real violence was growing. But he had promised Adria years ago that Leah would remain safe. He could not abandon that promise now.
He gave the nobleman a short nod. “I will keep the girl,” he said. “I know of relatives who will take her in.”
“You will leave the city immediately?”
“At first light.”
The nobleman seemed to consider this for a moment. If he doubted Cain’s story, it was too much trouble for him to admit it. Finally he nodded. “Be gone with you both, then,” he said. “The fire is out, and these fine citizens need to return to their beds.” He turned to the crowd. “Go home, everyone.”
“No.” Gillian began to writhe and kick again, and her shouting filled the night air. “How could you? Deckard!” The two men dragged her away from the rest of them as she began to fight harder. “You will see!” she screamed. “You have been blind, but you will all see soon enough! Caldeum will be filled with Hell itself, and you will wish I had burned it to the ground!”
As they reached the street corner, Cain heard one of them grunt and curse as Gillian landed a blow, and suddenly she was free. Bedlam washed over the crowd as she rushed back toward Cain, her hands raised above her head and her fingers curled like claws, face blackened with soot, her eyes wild. She looked like a true madwoman, and men and women shrank away as she appeared to be ready to murder them all.
But as she reached him, time seemed to stop as she sank against his body and clutched him close, her breath hot against his ear. “Go to Kurast,” she whispered. “They are waiting for you there, Deckard. Your brothers. Take Leah and go, please, and search for Al Cut! It is our only chance.”
Before he had the chance to react or say a word, the guards were upon her. They yanked her brutally to the ground, turning her on her face and pulling her arms behind her until she shrieked in pain. “Wait!” Cain shouted, but they ignored him, pulling Gillian to her feet again and dragging her away. He stepped forward to follow, but the nobleman grabbed his arm, and the crowd closed in again, their voices raised in anger and fear.
The guards turned the corner, disappearing from sight. Then he heard a muffled thud, and the screaming ceased. Cain ached for Gillian to the very core. The Caldeum madhouse awaited her, full of the worst cases of the insane and the damned, those who were locked up and harnessed, chained to the walls, their voices ragged from shouting. They were drugged and beaten, and he had heard that some doctors there still practiced the barbaric rituals of years before, drilling holes in skulls to release pressure and dull the spirits of those who could not rest.
His heart breaking, the old man almost went after them again, but he knew he could not. There were far larger things at stake, and no matter how he felt about Gillian, he could not allow her situation to distract him.
What had her last words meant? They are waiting for you there, Deckard. Your brothers. And what about the rest of it? She had mentioned Al Cut. Had he said something to her about that name when he had arrived? Or did she know something more than she had told him?
The crowd had remained for a few moments, waiting to see if anything else would happen. But now that Gillian was out of sight, the energy quickly dissipated, and people began to drift away in small groups.
The nobleman released Cain’s arm, and took one more look at him. “If I return here in the morning and find any trace of you,” he said, “I will have you thrown in jail, and the girl can go beg on the streets.”
“Your generosity is overwhelming,” Cain said.
“Watch your tongue!”
Cain took a single step forward until no more than a foot separated them. In spite of the man’s bulk, he was very short and squat, and Cain towered over him. “I believe I have, thank you. But there are other judges of character who may not be so forgiving. You should ask yourself what’s coming for you, in this life or the next.”
The nobleman blinked, a bit of color draining from his face. For a moment it seemed he might grab Cain with his own bare hands, but he had been spoiled by years of soft living. He shook his fist in Cain’s face. “Tomorrow,” he said. Then he turned and walked away.
Leah. Cain rubbed his face with his hand, trying to return some feeling to his suddenly numb flesh. His bones ached with exhaustion, and his mind worried at this new problem. Gillian had clearly entrusted her to him. But what on earth would he do with the child? His thoughts returned to that moment inside the burning house when Leah’s eyes had squeezed shut and her hands had clenched, the energy surging from her, shattering the lantern and rattling the walls. This was no ordinary little girl. And he was not equipped to deal with her.